.3 3. women's Our IN THE MOUNTAINS 0 STIINEWAII Or Gcig Hisfor-9 In A Nutshell Home wasn't Built without (tails — Auausr 1999 —- 13 Here in the United States, we BY CHARLES EMOND have only been at this “republic” . . . h’ f ' ° T he list of gay Roman emper- was watching, as his Roman Taking the Bad with Matters of the heart ttateg a::e::f::xt?é°gEe:;u£;::hV:: ors is extensive. The famous legions marched along later, they G t -t f th t- . historian Edward Gibbon chanted, “Caesar conquered Gaul thghggegtf fame a irrehr::g ifieraeee acid’ with the Rm.nanS' I propose that observed that among the first 15 and Nicomedes, Caesar.” He was S us g y emperor’ ’ ’ ’ we look a “me more closely at emperors, the_only one with the “correct” taste in love was Claudius. (Gibbon was obviously even referred to in one edict as “the Queen of Bithynia.” It was Curio the Elder who called Julius and one of the best emperors by all accounts (naturallyl), was Hadrian. He ruled for more than 20 years, and managed to retire and Tibullius, speak of erotic love between men as the most natural of things. Stoic philosopher Zeno proclaimed that the object of a how they lived, and notjust at the glory that was their architecture! not a fan of the pink team.) But Caesar, “Every man’s wife and from emee This itself-was quite a manas love could be male or Next time: then, as “another historian every woman’s husband” ~'a sort feet when you e ensi d er that in th e female and Epietetus wrote that who was that naked observtid’ Claudlus was a Ofhbliexual gm ihmfin.’ Tl you year 69, Rome went through four both were of the same quality. man in the garden? 'h°r°h- W‘ = “t “"3 ecte P° ‘"93 3' by Petronius, Juvenal, Martial, and The fact is that many emper- ors, both good and bad, had male ’ lovers. Boswell makes the case that several actually gained power by submitting sexually to the pre- vious ruler — Augustus to Julius Caesar, Otho to Nero, Hadrian to Trajan, for example. What an this publicity. Although love was supposed to come afier marriage, amicable ‘divorce was common. Only mar- ried women were expected to be faithful to the marriage vows, and Roman citizens were free to con- duct their sex lives as they saw fit. emperors. Hadrian had an official wife he never saw and actually might have had poisoned. He fell in love with Antinous, a young Greek, and lived openly with him. When Antinous drowned in the Nile in 130 AD, Hadrian is said to have “wept like a woman.” In his grief, he had Antinous Plutarch described the love of men for men and women for women in every class. There are several lesbian couples in the romantic literature of the day, especially in Iamblicus’ Babyloniaca, but since the famous writers were men, their Further reading: a movie this time — Derek J arrnan ’s Sebastiane (1976) which shows a Roman centurion banished with his sol- diers to a desert outpost and lust- ing after a beautiful Christian sol- dier. This movie is poetic and interesting concept for our But there was a sense among declared a god and Spent the rest attentions were elsewhere and the mysterious _ and the nudity is t|m€S--- them that 3 P355!“ Sexhhh role of his reign naming cities, reads, pickings are slim. nice—but it is the only movie I’ve Wen’ perhaps we had_better wa.S not proper f9r. a Cullen‘ and public buildings after him! ever seen with Latin dialogue! It mt follow that too far‘ Sun’ we Bemg on the recewmg end of He commissioned statues coins RePubliC3n Virtues? does have English sub-titles" rent 7 7 9 could borrow much from the Romans. We’ve already copied their monuments to make Washington, DC, look like an overblown Forum. Why not their mores? After all, they did have some things so very right. Foreign relations Like the Greeks, the Romans admired macho soldiers who had things, except perhaps in the excitement and ignorance of youth, had demeaning implica- tions — hence, Julius Caesar’s rib- bing by his men. Male prostitutes in Rome paid taxes on their earnings and had a special public holiday. That might not be something we want to lobby for here. But certainly the fact that same-sex marriages were and paintings, and created memo- rials to him everywhere. (Hey, we did the same kind of thing with George Washington in the early years of our republic.) Nero, possibly the worst emperor, had many affairs with men and married two publicly —separately, I believe — with one receiving the honors due an empress. At one of his weddings, Did homosexuality cause the fall of Rome? Despite what Trent Lott might have you believe, there was no link. Historical evidence shows that it was strong through- out the early years and the golden age of the Empire. You might just as easily use homosexuality to explain Rome’s rise and success! And long before the Romans, the it and you will agree that it’s a good thing Latin is dead. Charlie Emond has a bache- lor 's degree from Queen ‘s College and masters degrees from both Dartmouth and Keene State. He teaches college history courses in Springield, and will be teaching a course he developed — Hidden lovers. Rumor had it that Julius actually legal in Rome until 342 an enreeker commented’ “If Eh-useahs showed the same History; Homgsexuamy in Caesgf, 0h”0h€ 0f_ h!5 Campaigns, AD 1_5 ,W°Tfh h0hhg- 1?°ThaP5 Nereis father had married this sort degree of comfort as the Romans Western Civilization — at CC V in was used by Nwomedes’ Kmg Amenca S tmrd century Wm See as. of wife, the world would be a with homosexuality at all levels. 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